Marvel Studios spent four years building toward a single movie, and the bet paid off. The Avengers, released in 2012, is the sixth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first to put Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Hulk in one room. Joss Whedon wrote and directed it. It runs 143 minutes.
Trailer, via Marvel Entertainment.
Nick Fury Reactivates the Initiative
The plot is a recruitment drive. Loki, Thor’s brother, steals the Tesseract, a powerful energy source, and uses his scepter to enslave Dr. Erik Selvig and Agent Clint Barton. Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D., reactivates the Avengers Initiative.
Natasha Romanoff flies to Kolkata for Bruce Banner. Phil Coulson visits Tony Stark. Fury approaches Steve Rogers. The team assembles in Stuttgart, then on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flying base, the Helicarrier.
That middle section is where the film earns its runtime. The Avengers argue about how to handle Loki, then turn on Fury when they learn S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to build weapons from the Tesseract. The argument is the point. Six people with six reasons to distrust each other, stuck in one room.
Robert Downey Jr. Pushes for the Lead
The ensemble is the reason this works. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark as the loudest voice in any scene. Chris Evans gives Steve Rogers a man out of his own century. Mark Ruffalo takes over Bruce Banner from Edward Norton and makes the quietest Avenger the most interesting one.
Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is the outsider who understands Loki best. Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner do the work the script asks of them. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is the engine of the whole thing.
Downey was paid $50 million once box-office bonuses and backend compensation were factored in, per the reporting around the film. He also pushed Whedon to make Stark the lead. Whedon tried it. It didn’t work. Downey’s own account: “the story and the idea and the theme is the theme, and everybody is just an arm of the octopus.”
That is the right call, and the film knows it.
The Helicarrier Attack Sags
The Helicarrier attack is the weakest stretch. Banner transforms into the Hulk in the chaos, Stark and Rogers restart a damaged engine, and Thor goes after his brother. It is a lot of motion for a film that had been winning on talk.
The Loki imprisonment scenes carry more weight than the action around them. A villain who wants to be caught is a better problem than a villain who wants to win.
Hard Numbers
- Release year: 2012
- Runtime: 143 minutes
- MCU installment: sixth
- Director and writer: Joss Whedon
- Robert Downey Jr. earnings: $50 million, with bonuses and backend
- Score: 8.1/10
Running Order
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Portal opens | Loki reaches Earth and steals the Tesseract |
| Recruitment | Romanoff to Kolkata, Coulson to Stark, Fury to Rogers |
| Stuttgart | Barton steals iridium; Loki surrenders |
| Helicarrier | The team argues; Loki’s agents attack |
| Finale | The Avengers assemble |
The Avengers is not a perfect film. Its second act sags under its own machinery, and the Helicarrier sequence trades character for noise. But the thing it was built to do — make six separate franchises feel like one story — it does without flinching.
Whedon’s script gives every hero a reason to be there and a reason to leave. That is harder than it looks, and no film in the MCU since has matched the trick as cleanly. The tagline promises “some assembly required.” The assembly is the movie, and it holds.
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